China: Badminton nation

Of course, in China, there's already plenty of people who like badminton. I'm hoping more foreigners, Americans, and other countries can get into this sport.- Lin Dan

Discussed in a previous article are the reasons for China's dominance in the sport of table tennis. Right here the purpose of this article is to discuss China's dominance in another racket sport: badminton.

Strong state support

The government in China is said to fund a majority of the sports schools and camps where its world class athletes are groomed at. The government is very focused when it comes to the optimization of the returns from investments in badminton talent, just like for table tennis. For instance, (and this numerical figure is not merely used as an example) so if they pick out 10 kids to fund, they put them through the best possible training that is available and expect at least 8 of them to be Olympic medalists. Money for badminton training is really not that big an issue there unlike in other more democratic countries like India or the US where athletes have to shell out a lot of their own money in order to gain access to world class training.

Strong culture of very early grooming

The Chinese have a large population and half of them are supposedly trained to be athletes, with a huge portion of them going the badminton path. Like for table tennis, the CHinese believe in spotting them young - government-hired scouts go from school to school looking for exceptional students and pick them out and train them in the sport that would best suit them. For example, a tall kid will be made to train in basketball and a quick one will be trained in running. Unlike in other countries where the kids themselves get to make a choice of sport that they would like to pursue, here, the children are forced into a sport that the coaches and trainer feel that they will excel in. Interesting, other countries who have had Chinese coaches coaching their badminton players have also excelled in the sport under their tutelage. For example, Denmark has their assistant coach is from China, and it is the best Western nation in badminton.

Culture of brutal training

The Chinese are very secretive when it comes to their training camps and facilities. They never divulge their secrets and so there are just a few documentaries or verified reports that give us a brief insight into their training methods. Around the time of the London Olympics, there were several pictures that were doing the rounds on the internet that showed poor little kids, no more than 8 or 10 years old, going through torturous training sessions along with being given harsh punishments for failing to accomplish something. They train for several hours together, pushing their limits each day until they become unbeatable.

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